Conventions

March-May is the mad busy con season with shows piling up like bumper cars in the corner. Two recent showrunner interviews give us a few more facts and figures on two, this week's C2E2 in Chicago and Portland, OR's Stumptown in TWO weeks.

You’ve never attended ANY comic con before. So, what’s the best way to ease your way into the maddening hordes? Try this… this is similar to what I did, when I was a shy, bespectacled, nerdy fan of comics and other popular (yet marginalized) cultures.

Okay, hotel room reservation notification for this year's San Diego Comic-Con started rolling out last night...and it was a mixed bag. Although The Beat got a room at our second choice, lots of people didn't get a room at all. And based on an informal Twitter survey, it all seems to have been pretty random. People who got in between 9:03 and 9:09 seemed to run the gamut from first choice to no choice. Was this really just a lottery? SOMEWHERE, we SEEM to remember reading that time stamps within 3 minutes of each other would be treated as a tie and processed in random order....but now we can't find that language anywhere on the CCI site, so maybe we just imagined it? At any rate this kind of process would explain what happened.

Hero Initiative is the non-profit organization that aids comic creators in medical and financial need—and if you've been reading the Beat lately you know that they are more needed than ever. Tonight, as part of the Emerald City Comicon, they are having a bowling fundraiser which sounds like a great time for a great cause, as they say. Although spots have already been auctioned off, you can still go watch the fun:

Image has a huge presence at this weekend's Emerald City Comicon -- here are the details and exclusives:

In a few hours, reservations for hotel rooms for this year's San Diego Comic-Con are going to be available, kicking off the annual rite known as Hotel-o-ween. YOU never know what you're going to get—it might be a trick, or it might be a treat.

Chris Claremont reveals what might have been in X-Factor #1. Read on to discover Alan Moore's involvement!

Here's a brief making-of featurette on Morgan Spurlock's Comic-Con documentary, which opens in theaters and on VOD on April 6th.

Talk about a lousy break: The van containing all of Avatar's merchandise from WonderCon that was going on to Emerald City Comicon was stolen from a comics shop parking lot:

[As shown by our lively comments thread on our previous whither WonderCon posts, people love guessing what's up with Comic-Con! Rather than guess, we sat down with CCI's VP of Marketing and Public Relations as the show was winding down on Sunday to find out where it will be next year, and what other changes in this year's Big Show we can expect.]

You can see the titles for all the shows in this link. The list doesn't appear to be complete quite yet, as there are no panels listed for DC, but it does look like a lively show. C2E2 kicks off in a few short weeks, from April 13-15. The Beat will be there!

Videos, links and previews from the nerdly/toonly side of WonderCon.